"When Tom Brady gets pressure and when you're man-to-man and bumping those guys and making it hard for him to throw, he sees ghosts," Clark said Monday, via Comcast SportsNet New England. "Even when guys aren't around him, even when he's not about to be sacked, when his clock goes off in his head that the ball should be out, we'll see him duck, we'll see him flinch. When you get Tom Brady doing that, the whole New England Patriots mystique goes away."

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None of what Clark said exactly was revolutionary. Brady himself in the past has discussed his propensity to avoid tacklers who don't exist.

That doesn't mean that in the week leading up to the Steelers-Patriots matchup at Gillette Stadium, Clark's words won't be dredged back up, thumbtacked to cork board and dissected by every media member.

Those are the breaks for a guy playing analyst while still donning a helmet.